Mungkin kita tidak sadar, tapi kita lalu tidak pernah menganggap serius orang yang kita anggap sebagai “a clown in the crowd”. We just don’t take them seriously. We don’t want to. Because the person supposed to be a clown, and who would take a clown seriously? Speaking with a personal experience, saya mengakui, saya juga cenderung “melabeli” orang. Si ini matre lah, si ini suka ga nyambung lah, si itu terlalu rajin lah... Dan saya seringkali tidak sadar bahwa dengan “melabeli” orang semacam itu, saya justru mencegah diri saya sendiri untuk bia belajar dari mereka. Teman kuliah saya dulu ada yang luguuuu banget. Bukan lugu dalam artian yang jelek sih, polos dan naif mungkin lebih tepatnya. Dan ada saat dimana saya dikagetkan bahwa ternyata dia juara pidato. I was like, “huh? Beneran nih itu dia?”.Saya sendiri juga merasa that I am beinglabelled. I don’t want to complain, maybe it’s myself who create the label for me. Di tempat saya bekerja, Sunardi sudah sempat memperingatkan, bahwa saya seringkali terlalu “sombong” untuk bilang “tidak”. Dan mungkin karena itulah, entah perasaan saya saja atau gimana, I got more tasks to do than the others. Kalau ada apa-apa, orang cenderung dengan santainya “biar Utami aja...”, “suruh Utami aja...”, “biasanya Utami mau aja kok...”. Okay, on one side, I can take that as a compliment. That people recognize me for something good. Tapi ada saat-saat dimana saya pengen teriak: “duuuhh... kok aku lagi siiihhh?”. And I feel just soooo tired to be “a good employee”. Oh, and to make it a balance, I don’t just get a positive label. Surely, a, oh, okay, some negative things also somehow being labelled to me. Ekstrimnya nih, “silly” is also one of it. Well, sometimes it’s fun to be a clown in the crowd. I don’t mind if people laughed at me, as I always make silly mistakes, lots of time. But the not-so-nice-thing about it is, sometimes people don’t take me seriously. Seringkali, apa yang aku katakan, ga dianggep. Because for them, I don’t suppose to be right. I don’t have the right. And it hurts.The feeling that, what I say is not important enough to be considered. The feeling that most of the things that I do is improper, is wrong, that they can do it better than me. Pernah baca serial Percy Jackson and The Olympians? Disana ada istilah The Mist, a kind of magic yang menghalangi manusia biasa melihat apa yang sebenarnya terjadi pada non-mortal, heroes, and monsters in the story. Mungkin, that's the way stigma and label work. By creating The Mist, that prevent us to see someone as they are. And it prevent us to see, that someone can be better than what we think they are...Wish that I could make The Mist around me disappear, so people can see me as the way I am...

Mungkin kita tidak sadar, tapi kita lalu tidak pernah menganggap serius orang yang kita anggap sebagai “a clown in the crowd”. We just don’t take them seriously. We don’t want to. Because the person supposed to be a clown, and who would take a clown seriously? Speaking with a personal experience, saya mengakui, saya juga cenderung “melabeli” orang. Si ini matre lah, si ini suka ga nyambung lah, si itu terlalu rajin lah... Dan saya seringkali tidak sadar bahwa dengan “melabeli” orang semacam itu, saya justru mencegah diri saya sendiri untuk bia belajar dari mereka. Teman kuliah saya dulu ada yang luguuuu banget. Bukan lugu dalam artian yang jelek sih, polos dan naif mungkin lebih tepatnya. Dan ada saat dimana saya dikagetkan bahwa ternyata dia juara pidato. I was like, “huh? Beneran nih itu dia?”.Saya sendiri juga merasa that I am beinglabelled. I don’t want to complain, maybe it’s myself who create the label for me. Di tempat saya bekerja, Sunardi sudah sempat memperingatkan, bahwa saya seringkali terlalu “sombong” untuk bilang “tidak”. Dan mungkin karena itulah, entah perasaan saya saja atau gimana, I got more tasks to do than the others. Kalau ada apa-apa, orang cenderung dengan santainya “biar Utami aja...”, “suruh Utami aja...”, “biasanya Utami mau aja kok...”. Okay, on one side, I can take that as a compliment. That people recognize me for something good. Tapi ada saat-saat dimana saya pengen teriak: “duuuhh... kok aku lagi siiihhh?”. And I feel just soooo tired to be “a good employee”. Oh, and to make it a balance, I don’t just get a positive label. Surely, a, oh, okay, some negative things also somehow being labelled to me. Ekstrimnya nih, “silly” is also one of it. Well, sometimes it’s fun to be a clown in the crowd. I don’t mind if people laughed at me, as I always make silly mistakes, lots of time. But the not-so-nice-thing about it is, sometimes people don’t take me seriously. Seringkali, apa yang aku katakan, ga dianggep. Because for them, I don’t suppose to be right. I don’t have the right. And it hurts.The feeling that, what I say is not important enough to be considered. The feeling that most of the things that I do is improper, is wrong, that they can do it better than me. Pernah baca serial Percy Jackson and The Olympians? Disana ada istilah The Mist, a kind of magic yang menghalangi manusia biasa melihat apa yang sebenarnya terjadi pada non-mortal, heroes, and monsters in the story. Mungkin, that's the way stigma and label work. By creating The Mist, that prevent us to see someone as they are. And it prevent us to see, that someone can be better than what we think they are...Wish that I could make The Mist around me disappear, so people can see me as the way I am...